


people like us

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Coulson's pov, F/M, So much angst, Spoilers, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-05
Updated: 2014-03-05
Packaged: 2018-01-14 16:32:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1273372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Sometimes the wrong choice is the only one available</i>.</p><p>(Spoilers for 1x14 "T.A.H.I.T.I.")</p>
            </blockquote>





	people like us

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You stay with her.

You stay with her inside the pod until your clothes smell of sickness and recovery and disinfectant and _Skye_. There's no more anger and adrenaline running your body for you. You sit and keep still; you keep as still as she is, for as long as she is. You listen to her breathing until you forget how to work yours, and it's a fair exchange. She is your mirror, your victim, your curse.

 

 

 

&

Her blood in the stains of the shirt you can't bring yourself to wash or throw away.

 

 

 

&

Simmons comes in to change the IV drip. You want to ask her when she thinks Skye is going to wake up, but then you realize you asked the same question only this morning, and you stop yourself at the last moment.

You realize your presence here is bothering her, more than just professionally. Her jaw is set and you think she has aged ten years in the last couple of days.

"You're not the only one who cares, sir."

 

 

 

&

Sometimes the wrong choice is the only one available.

You thought you understood that, the night you absolved Mike Peterson on that bridge, after he traded you for his son's life. You thought you had it all figured out then: by choosing SHIELD over life every time, by choosing simple over complicated. If you led a clean life, if you emptied yourself of all the potential people you could have been, if you never had any doubts – the implicit promise was that this would be easy. And here you are now, watching this girl's sleeping form and it is complicated and it is _life_. It's not easy and you don't feel precisely empty.

You didn't get to make this choice, because there was no choice to begin with.

 

 

 

&

You touch Simmons' hand. She slips it from under your fingers, swiftly but not unkind.

" _Jemma_. I'm sorry." For what it's worth, though you suspect it's not worth a damn thing.

"You saved Skye's life. How can I begrudge you that, sir? But I don't know if I can forgive the rest."

You admire her. It's that simple, really.

"You would have been brave enough to do the right thing," you tell her.

And you would have been too, at the very last minute, too late. Which probably means it doesn't mean anything. It's only theory and theory knows this: you would have let Skye die too, realizing it so much later than Simmons. Skye dying is unthinkable, but not as unthinkable as causing her pain.

Simmons figured it out a lot quicker. You didn't mean to make her an accomplice.

 

 

 

&

You are out in the field with Ward when she wakes up. She's not supposed to be waking up just yet. Simmons has promised. Skye's sedated and out cold again by the time you arrive at the Bus.

She's going to be drifting in and out of consciousness for the next couple of days, Simmons tells you.

"Did she say anything?" you ask.

"She was calling for you. Well, she was calling for someone called _A.C._ I'm ashamed to say it took Fitz and I a while to crack that code."

 

 

 

&

For the next few hours she comes around and drifts off again, comes around and drifts off, many times.

She's alive and her open eyes are a gift; then again, that is not exactly a revelation to you.

She looks at everybody's faces, says their names with difficulty, her throat dry and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Sometimes she can't match the right name with the right face, keeps mixing Fitz and Ward up, eyelids heavy, arms heavy when she tries to reach out to all of you. The painkillers leave her dizzy and without memory for a bit. You are grateful for the reprise, all the questions you have no idea how you'll bring yourself to answer.

 

 

 

&

You watch May tangle one hand in Skye's hair and when May looks up at you you see someone you thought you had lost a long time ago. Skye is asleep but you have the urge to tell her anyway: _it wasn't me the one who could turn her around_.

 

 

 

&

It's night and everybody else has gone to sleep. You didn't even pretend you were going to leave Skye's side, and your team didn't even pretend they expected you to.

You try calling her back, answering her call. You only have one name, and the name has always felt too small for her.

 _Skye_ , a experimental whisper against the green light of the monitors. The monitors you keep expecting to tell you of the ways in which you have damned her.

 _Skye_ , choking you, bitter in the back of your throat.

 _Skye_ , a powerless prayer for unbelievers like you.

 

 

 

&

You fall asleep by her side, elbow resting on the edge of her bed, lulled by the soft hissing of machines that tell you that whatever she is at least _she is_ , and cradled by the feverish scent of sweat and bedsheets.

When you wake up there's Skye, her face, and her is face strangely close until you realize your head is leaning against her pillow. She's looking at you, curious and amused and awake. And bright with that particular way Skye has of illuminating places in your life you didn't know were dark until she walked in.

"I fell asleep," you say. You sit straight, massaging the hard knots of muscles in the back of your neck.

"I noticed," she points out and smiles. How can she smile like that, after everything, smile _at you_ like that.

 

 

 

&

"I'm sorry," she tells you some time after.

" _Sorry_?"

"For going after Quinn alone, I shouldn't have... I must have caused you a lot of problems. I'm sorry," she repeats.

You hold her in your arms, the urge cutting through you like a blade; you want to take her by the shoulders and shake her, ask what kind of fool is she, how can she say _sorry_. You hold her instead, feeling sharp bones and heartbeat under the palms of your hands. You hide your head in the hollow of her neck because, is there anywhere else left to hide?

 

 

 

&

"What happened to me?" she asks. "Because I remember lying on that basement floor. I remember _knowing_ I was going to die."

"What happened to me?" she asks. "Simmons said you were the only one who should answer that."

She listens as you explain the scar on your chest, as you explain how you grew a new heart. You don't realize what a good metaphor that is. Her hand moves to trace the wounds on her own body, a faithful reflection of all the fears you've carried for months, fears you thought were hopelessly yours _alone_. And maybe you are the curse.

 

 

 

&

You touch her forearm, feeling the soft layer of hair under your fingertips. If she is anything other than only human, well, so are you.

"This is not something I wanted us to have in common," you say.

 

 

 

&

She sits up in bed, energy returning to those limbs – she looks tiny and yet she looks nothing less than indestructible. You can feel yourself drawing strength from her presence and realize how much you've missed it. The intimation that as long as she is by your side you'll be able to make the right call. But she wasn't, so you didn't.

"Am I okay? Is anything weird going to happen to me?"

"I don't know."

"But you are okay. Aren't you?"

No lies, not ever again. Lies are for the rest, for other people, not you two. Lies are for SHIELD. Lies the white lies you told May. Lies they've been teaching you to tell for more than twenty years. Lies Skye taught you to disown in a minute or a heartbeat.

You admit you don't have any useful answers: "There wasn't time. I had to get out. I'm sorry. I should be able to offer you more than that."

But you know nothing. You know she is alive. You don't know the price of this. You know no price would have been too high. You know maybe it shouldn't have been paid anyway.

She keeps talking, keeps giving voice to your most pressing nightmares, like she can read it in your eyes: "So now what, am I part alien? Will it keep regenerating? Will I be able to die?"

"I don't know. But I don't want you to test that last theory."

She gives you a look, a smile, everything. "Hey, well, likewise."

 

 

 

&

"So let me get this straight. The Clairvoyant wanted you to lead him to that place, that's why I was–."

And you knew, you were prepared to make that bargain, you didn't care. It's disappointing how much you didn't care. No, not disappointing, _dangerous_. You still don't know what the consequences of your actions will be – the world outside this room seems all but inconsequential right now. You tell Skye all this.

"I'm sorry," you keep saying and Skye keeps making an annoyed face at you every time. "I'm afraid I might have made all the wrong decisions."

She rest her chin on her knees, seizing you with one kind look. "You didn't think you had another choice."

She's not absolving you. "Skye," you call out.

She looks up at you, smiling with more courage than you know she actually feels. She grabs your wrist; her fingers are tiny around the curve of your bones, but the grip is the strongest you've ever known – ever since she met you she hasn't let you go, not even once.

This isn't something you should have in common and yet she tells you: "I'm glad I'm not alone in this."

 

 

 

&

She asks when can she go back to work. She's off the meds, and traces of pain are burning through her veins, but she weathers it. She is still tired, weak, and you _have_ forgotten there is a world outside this room. A world you have vowed to protect.

Now you wonder if she's started to resent you already. Skye looks at you like you are a complete idiot and maybe you have said that out loud. She's been thinking about this a lot, she explains. She's the one with the unexpected solution. _This_ is the thing about Skye.

"If SHIELD is keeping that kind of secrets... Maybe this happened for a reason. Maybe it takes people like us to make things right."

She's tired and weak and in pain but she is ready for a fight. Something sparks in you. You can feel it in your gut, for all the good that ever did.

You didn't know there was any fight left in you.

You didn't know there was any fight in you to begin with.

She is your mirror, your weapon, your salvation.


End file.
